it's been a while...

It's not that I don't have anything to say, but everything to say has already been said at least a hundred times.


I miss her dearly. I glance at her brother and get flashes of her silhouette, her essence, her being. I wonder if I will always see a little bit of her in him? hmmm....


I hope so.

It's a scorcher right now in south Texas and believe it or not, I am LOVING the heat. No not because I love hot weather, I just remember the last time it was this hot...


A year ago. Even the most bitter things in life (like hot Texas summers) can be sweet when they remind me of my Jenna.


A year ago we lived in this itty bitty rent house. I LOVED that house. It was the place we went home to from the hospital after she died.


The yard was a deceit size and it just felt like home. My hubs had moved us out of our apartment while I was in bed rest, so the first time I actually got to live there was after Jenna died. I remember Pete and I would spend long afternoons, and late evenings out in the yard fixing it up. We'd never been in a house before; it was nice to have so many projects to fill our empty time.


But I am having a hard time describing just how sweet that summer was. It's like heaven's fragrance lingered from that day it had opened it's gates and taken my daughter home. There was something sweet about those long days spent outside in our two-bedroom house. I literally could have lived there forever. I remember we would play the "Jenna tunes" over and over (lots of Allison Krauss)... and it was just sweet. There's no other word for life as it was at that time.


And don't misunderstand me, those summer days were filled with sorrow and lots and lots of pain, but the anger hadn't come yet nor the disappointment. I'm really not sure how I jumped on the bandwagon of disappointment and anger. Sometimes I just wish I could get a whiff of Heaven's fragrance again. Last summer I just felt her everywhere. I knew that I knew that I knew she was just fine. And that used to be enough.


I look back and remember fearing that I would forget her if I didn't _________(fill in the blank)... but I now know how ridiculous and impossible it would be to forget her. A few weeks after she died I felt like I needed to start doing something in her name... but I ended up spending the entire summer at that two-bedroom house. I eventually went back to work, although it was never the same. Things would complicate themselves by summer's end, and in July I would find this world of babyloss mothers, hearts knitted in grief and love.


A year from that sweet summer where Heaven just felt a step away, a breath away. A footprint away from my daughter's home. I hope to continue remembering last summer as the heat blazes these next few months.


I miss my girl.




ps - I am now taking requests for Hope Collages again